Real pity. It was an important idea that should have gotten a chance.
Why? Sounds like a small expensive hotel and a slow plane ride.
Or a better night train. The slowness is not an issue if you can actually save time by merging the trip and the hotel stay.
You’re essentially paying for a hotel that transports you to a different city by next morning, as if by magic. You can have a full day’s work or sightseeing, eat dinner, board your train and get a reasonable night’s sleep, waking up to have another full day at your destination.
Your room is smaller, more like a prison cell than a hotel room. And it’s noisier (depending on the train). And there’s no guarantee you will arrive on time. And the food is worse. And you can’t leave.
It’s like being in prison. I want to like trains but they need to be fast (high speed rail) or convenient (subways).
This is a great map of the night train services across Europe.
https://back-on-track.eu/night-train-map/
They vary significantly in levels of comfort and price, but there’s a lot to check out. Shame this new service didn’t work out.
Ah, that was on my list of “looking forward to try”. The Porto to Hamburg line they had in their promotional material sounded really cool.
